Real time and dynamic voting

ABSTRACT

Embodiments of the present invention facilitate the solicitation of user input while allowing for dynamic changes to that input while concurrently ranking the same. Ranking occurs in real-time and allows for a user to alter their contribution or vote until the close of a contribution period allowing real-time influences to be taken into account. Contributions may be provided in response to or as a part of a template driven nomination process. Solicitations of input may occur in the context of a pre-defined slate of options for voting, nominating certain options for a subsequent or concurrent voting process, or choosing/suggest more than one option such as the best of a slate of options or the individual ranking of a slate of options. Embodiments of the present invention capture all user nominations or suggestions while simultaneously providing the real-time ranking and dynamic re-ranking of those nominations or suggestions.

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS

The present application is a continuation and claims the prioritybenefit of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 13/309,553 filed Dec. 1,2011, which claims the priority benefit of U.S. provisional application61/418,794 filed Dec. 1, 2010, the disclosures of which are incorporatedherein by reference.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

1. Field of the Invention

The present invention generally concerns online polling and voting. Thepresent invention more specifically concerns the solicitation of inputand contributions from an online community, real-time ranking the inputand contributions, and ongoing consideration of dynamic changes to thecommunity input and contributions while concurrently ranking the same.

2. Description of the Related Art

Client and cloud based voting and polling applications currently existin the art. These applications are typically used by groups ofindividuals whose input is being solicited by a person or organization.The organizations soliciting input can ask questions and end-users canvote on or respond to those questions. These questions are typicallyframed such that they solicit or require a simple yes/no or fixedmultiple-choice vote.

The social networking site Facebook offers a polling/questionapplication. An organization seeking input or feedback from users in theFacebook community implements the application in the Facebookenvironment by filling out a short HTML based poll/question creationform to generate the poll or query as illustrated in FIG. 1. The pollcreation form generates the specific query (the question being asked ofpolled individuals) and the possible response options (yes, no, etc).Users are then able to select from amongst those options.

Other polling applications attempt to prioritize or rank user responsesand submissions that have been solicited based on open ended questions.SurveyMonkey offers a variety of browser based polling services. Theseservices allow for the generation of survey questions that trigger aresponse based on fixed responses, ratings, images, comments and essayboxes.

While SurveyMonkey allows for more ‘free flow’ based answers in thecontext of commentary or textual responses, a poll or survey creatormust create a validation scheme that includes information related to aspecified format for the response entry. When the criteria are not met,the respondent receives an error message, which may discourage therespondent from further participation in the poll or survey. Ranking offree form answers is difficult due to the presence of any number ofvariables. Not all of these variables may be present when a userproffers a vote or response meaning that not all responses may beequally or properly weighted.

A common drawback of these and other known polling applications is thatonce a user participates, the user is typically prevented from takingpart in any further interaction by way of a cookie deposited on thecomputing device of the user or tracking data associated with a userprofile. ‘One and done’ voting systems prevent a user from offeringtheir opinion should it change after their initial vote is cast oropinion is proffered. Alternatively, a user may be allowed unlimitedparticipation in a polling event. Such unlimited participation is,however, incorrectly characterized as that of a new participant. As aresult, one user may vote 100 times and erroneously be considered thesingle vote of 100 separate participants. Such unlimited participationmay skew poll results, especially if a particular user has an agendawith respect to the outcome of the poll (e.g., voting for a favoriteplayer in the All-Star Game) and also incorrectly reflects the overallinterest of a specific community in the question being asked.

In light of the foregoing, there is a need in the art for thesolicitation of dynamic user input and the concurrent ranking of thesame.

SUMMARY OF THE PRESENTLY CLAIMED INVENTION

A first claimed embodiment of the present invention is for a method forprocessing user input. Through the claimed method, a query is publishedto a user audience. A first response to the query is received from usersin the audience. Each of the audience members is an individuallyidentifiable user. The query responses are then displayed in real-time.Updated responses are then received from one or more of the users thatpreviously provided a first response. The updated responses areresponsive to the initial published query. Updated query responses aredisplayed in conjunction with initial query responses, both beingdisplayed in real-time.

A second claimed embodiment of the present invention is for a furthermethod for processing user input. Through the second claimed embodiment,a query is published to a user audience. A response to the query isreceived from a first individually identifiable member of the audience.The response includes information prompted by a template correspondingto the query. The received response is then displayed as a potentialresponse for consideration and selection by the remaining members of theuser audience as a response to the published query.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

FIG. 1 illustrates a poll as found in the prior art.

FIG. 2 illustrates a method for processing user input.

FIGS. 3A-3C illustrate the real-time display of query response data.

FIG. 4 illustrates commentary provided by a community of users during avoting process.

FIG. 5 illustrates a method for template based nominations.

FIG. 6 illustrates a template as may be used in the method of FIG. 5.

FIG. 7 illustrates a computing system that may be used to implement anembodiment of the present invention.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

Embodiments of the present invention concern the solicitation of inputfrom a community and then ranking contributions received from thecommunity. Ranking occurs in real-time and takes into account ongoingchanges to community contributions. A user may alter their contributionor vote until the close of a contribution period. By allowing acommunity member to change their vote until the close of a contributionperiod, a more accurate ranking of contributions may be taken intoaccount as those contributions reflect real-time influences.

Contributions may be provided in response to or as a part of a templatedriven nomination process. Prior art systems—like that illustrated inFIG. 1—simply request a limited set of information or single element ofinformation such as a yes/no response, the name of a nominee, a favoritefootball team, or a suggested restaurant for lunch. Embodiments of thepresent invention, however, allow a party soliciting information to usea template to generate a query and subsequently request multipleelements of information from a community. The response from communitymembers, which is template driven, requires a user to provide thosemultiple elements of information, which allows for more intelligentdecision making responsive to the contributed information.

The template driving the voting or polling process may be fixed andinclude a pre-defined number of fields. The template may also evolve inresponse to the entry of certain fields of information whereby requestsfor additional nomination information may be spawned as a result of aprior provisioning of information. Templates may also be created by anauthor of the query whereby data query fields are inserted into thetemplate from a preset menu of corresponding query elements that mightotherwise be germane to the field of inquiry. Data fields may also becustomizable based on the particular needs of an author.

Embodiments of the invention may be implemented in different contextswhere input is being solicited from a community. For example,solicitations may be limited to a pre-defined slate of options where thecommunity ‘votes’ on that static slate of options. The solicitation ofinput may—as an alternative or in addition to voting—include nominatingcertain options for a subsequent or concurrent voting process. Votingand nomination may also involve implementations where the community isallowed to choose (i.e., vote for) or suggest more than one option. Theability to choose or vote for more than one option may involve an equalweighting of any particular community member's votes (e.g., the bestthree choices of five available choices) or cascaded weighting of thosevotes (e.g., first, second, and third choice) whereby one vote is moremeaningful than another. An individual nomination or suggestion too, maybe independently attributed to separate suggestions or nominationssubmitted jointly as part of multiple nominations or suggestions thatare part of a singular query or request.

FIG. 2 illustrates a method 200 for processing user input. The methodmay be implemented through the use of instructions embodied in anon-transitory computer readable storage medium such as magnetic oroptical disk drive. These instructions may be retrieved from the storagemedium and executed by a computing device or processor as described inthe context of FIG. 7 below.

In step 210, a query is presented to a community of users through apublication mechanism. This query may be published and displayed tomembers of the community by way of a user interface, such as a webbrowser or a native interface, generated, displayed, and executable onthe likes of a desktop or laptop computer or mobile device. A communitymay be made aware of the query through an ‘alert’ such as a textmessage, electronic mail message, video based notification or acombination of the aforementioned. Queries may also be tracked as partof an RSS feed. Queries may also be accessible through a mobile deviceand corresponding application on that device (e.g., an ‘app’).

Information used to populate, for example, the web browser-displayedinterface and which may include data related to the query, may bereceived over a communications network from the entity soliciting userinput. This information may be delivered by a server (or series ofservers) operated by an application service provider (ASP). The ASP maybe tasked with hosting and serving the query as well as receiving datarelated to any subsequent responses. The ASP may also display data tothe community pertaining to those responses (e.g., tallied results).

Data related to making the query may be received at the ASP from anindividual user or entity soliciting the information. The ASP may alsohost dashboard-type applications that allow the entity or individualmaking the query to review granular response data that is of little orno interest to the community being queried. For example, information maybe generated and displayed concerning when a query was posted, whoviewed the query and when, when a user responded or contributed to thequery, when a new contribution or idea is posted, if and when a user haschanged a vote, or if and when a user has commented on a particularissue or idea. Such metric information allows for determinations as touser interest, activity, and end-results. Time-based changing ofrankings may be displayed as well (e.g., when an option was rankedfirst, second, or third).

While presentation of the query in step 210 and other functionalitiesare described in the context of an ASP environment, embodiments of thepresent invention are not limited to such a specific implementation.Embodiments of the present invention may also be implemented in thecontext of client-host operations that may require dedicated software atboth ends of a transaction. Queries may similarly be presented in apeer-to-peer type environment, which may require specific softwareimplementation amongst participant peers. The aforementioned mobiledevice ‘application’ implementation may offer more limited functionalitythat is appropriate in the context of a mobile environment.

Following publication of a query to a community of users, those usersmay provide a response to the query, which is received at step 220. Inprior art voting systems, a single user may create the appearance ofhundreds of votes to single-handedly manipulate the outcome of thepolling. Embodiments of the present invention may thus require eachmember of the community to register or create an account related to thequery or an entity proffering the query and soliciting input. While auser may be able to change their vote as described herein, registrationand identification of individual users will allow the system todetermine whether a vote or nomination is new or merely updated. Meansof tracking a user other than logging into a user account may beimplemented including monitoring IP addresses, generating and depositingcookies, frequency of login, and network address translation.

The account may also be used to track actual user responses to maintaina history of votes and nominations. The information concerning votingand nomination history may be accessible to the entity publishing thequery or other third-parties to allow for analytical analysis, which maybe of value to entities such as advertisers. The user may be able toimplement privacy provisions that prevent access to certain informationby certain entities.

The possible responses to the query may be pre-defined whereby a userresponse is limited to a finite number of possibilities. While possibleresponses are limited, the responses are uniform. Potential responsesmay also be free-form whereby a user provides a user-specific anduser-tailored response to the published query. These responses may bemore varied and representative of popular sentiments versus apre-defined list of responses, but inconsistent with respect topresentation. Parsing software may be utilized to derive context andmeaning from a free-form response such that it may be distilled into amore consistent series of responses amongst all users. Responses mayalso be template driven, which are discussed in greater detail in thecontext of FIG. 5 below.

Upon receipt of query response data in step 220, the ASP server or othercomputing device processing the response data may allow for the displayof query response data at step 230; in a preferred embodiment, thisdisplay occurs in real-time notwithstanding the fact that, in someinstances, results may not be displayed until after the close of thecontribution period or some other time frame in order to maintain thesecrecy of voting results (e.g., in an election). This data, like theinitial query, may be displayed through a web browser interface or otherinterface, which may be executable on a laptop or desktop computingdevice or through an ‘app’ on the likes of a mobile device.

FIGS. 3A-3C illustrate the real-time display of query response data asdescribed in the context of step 230. FIG. 3A illustrates the results ofan initial set of responses to a query and that correspond to 34 initialresponses (out of a possible 100 community members). FIG. 3B illustratesthe results of responses to that query later in time, with an additional60 community members having responded. FIG. 3C reflects the results ofthose same 94 community members having responded (6 members not havingoffered a response) a short time later, but wherein 10 of the communitymembers have changed their vote after considering additional informationthat was not available at the time of voting. This information mayinclude, but is not limited to, comments and arguments in favor ofdifferent or newly published alternatives that were not previouslypublished at the time of the initial vote from the community member.

The change in response data from FIG. 3B to FIG. 3C is a result of thereceipt of a second and updated response from community members in step240 and that pertains to the initially published query. Prior artsystems typically only allow for one vote and then for the voting periodto end; while a user might view the results of voting as they areprocessed, the user is not allowed to change that vote. In embodimentsof the present invention, however, a user may change their previous voteright up until the voting period closes. Similar changes may be made inthe context of nominations. These changes may be unlimited or subject toa restriction on the number of times a vote may be changed.

The benefits of the ability to change a vote up until the end of avoting period are most evident in the context of public elections forgovernmental officials, especially those on the national level. Forexample, many registered voters in public elections now participate byabsentee ballot. In order to ensure that their ballot is received andcounted, many absentee voters will complete their ballot and submit thesame well before the mandated deadline. Once the absentee ballot ismailed, however, the voter cannot change their vote should newinformation come to light that might influence their opinion on certaincandidates or issues.

A common occurrence in national American politics, however, is theso-called “October Surprise,” which is a news event that has thepotential to influence the outcome of an election and that typicallyoccurs late in the month of October and prior to Election Day on thefirst Tuesday in November. A voter that decides to vote in person maytake information derived from such an event in their voting decision. Anabsentee voter, however, is likely to have already submitted theirballot and risks having voted for a candidate or issue that latebreaking information would otherwise have cause them to change theirvote. Through embodiments of the present invention, a voter may ‘voteearly,’ but then change their vote prior to the end of the voting periodof their opinion should change in the interim. These principles may beapplied to national, state, or municipal elections for any number ofpositions and without regard to persons, places, or ideas.

FIGS. 3A and 3B thus represent the accumulation of initial response datafrom the community of users in step 220 and displayed at step 230. FIG.3C, however, reflects the receipt of secondary and changed response dataat step 240, which is then displayed in real-time at step 250. FIG. 3Calso reflects the data corresponding to the remaining users thatprovided a response, but that have not otherwise changed their responsesince their initial response.

Upon expiration of a pre-determined response period, the nominationand/or polling/voting process ends at step 260. The expiration periodmay be set by the individual or entity that is seeking user inputthrough publishing the query. Upon expiration of the response period atstep 260, final results may be further published and made available tothe community of users and/or the entity soliciting input at step 270.This final publication of results is in addition to the availability ofreal-time results that are updated as votes and contributions arereceived.

The aforementioned methodology may also integrate the acceptance anddisplay of user comments and feedback. FIG. 4 illustrates commentaryprovided by a community of users during a voting process. In someembodiments of the present invention, one or more users from thecommunity of users may be allowed to provide thoughts, comments, orother feedback related to their response to a published query. Thiscommentary may be provided at the same time as an actual decision, vote,suggestion, or nomination is rendered by a voter at step 220 or step240. A user may provide a comment concerning why they made a certainselection, advocating that others make a particular selection, ordiscouraging others to make a certain selection. Voters that have notyet made a selection, but that are viewing real-time results may takethis information into account when ultimately making their selection. Auser may alternatively provide comments or feedback after having madetheir vote or provide feedback that is responsive to the comments ofanother voter or participant.

In order to maintain the civility of a discussion board, comments may besubject to moderation. In such a system, an automated filter may searchfor certain prohibited terms or phrases and automatically preventposting of comments including the same. A human moderator may alsoobserve postings to check for contextual meaning and appropriateness ofthe forum. Comments may be subjected to moderation prior to or afterposting. In the latter instance, comments may be subjected to moderationonly if another user complains about a particular comment or remark. Insome instances, a user may be required to log in prior to posting aremark to avoid anonymous postings although comments may be postedwithout the need for public knowledge of the speaker. A community membermay, in some instances, be required to actually vote, nominate, or makesome affirmative suggestion prior to providing feedback or commenting onthe feedback of others.

The aforementioned cut-off time for voting may likewise apply tocomments and feedback. Users may, however, directly and discreetlycommunicate with one another through a private messaging system ratherthan in the public forum during and after a voting process. The state ofa user may also be recognized and information about that user may bepresented. For example, if a particular community has ten members,whether or not a member has voted or offered some contribution inresponse to a query may be displayed to the rest of the community (e.g.,voted, not voted; active; not active; anonymous vote; and actual vote).In this way, a user may be reminded or encouraged to contribute, whichfurther richens the body of ideas, offers, and contributions.

As evidenced in the context of FIG. 4, the real-time voting and rankingof ideas may be furthered by the presentation of better and morecomplete ideas and contributions. For example, a particular idea—in avacuum—may not immediately make sense to a community, which in turn maynot vote favorably or otherwise support for the idea. If the communityhas a better understanding of why an idea was submitted, however, thenthey might be more willing to offer their support for that idea in theform of a vote and/or supportive comments. In this regard, a user maynominate an idea and provide information as to why that particularnomination is worthwhile. In order to derive relevant nominationinformation that is common to all nominations, such a nomination may betemplate driven. This template can be customized by the person who ismaking the query.

FIG. 5 illustrates a method 500 for template-based nominations. Throughthe use of template-based nominations, a voter may make a more informeddecision and do so in a template-based format that standardizes the lookand presentation of the relevant data. The needs and criteria of thespecific nomination process can be properly captured, either bypre-configured data entry fields or through the use of a template whichallows the owner of a particular Vote or Nominate query to selectappropriate criteria fields from an existing palate or list of choices,or to simply enter-in customized information that results in thecreation of a customized nomination template with data fields that havebeen created by the owner of the question or query.

In step 510 of the method 500 illustrated in FIG. 5, a pre-configured“nominate” template is launched. This template contains structured datafields that pertain to the subject of the nominations. For example, anomination “type” could be a “Person,” “Place,” or “Thing.” In a‘person’-type nomination, the data fields might include informationrelated to the name of the nominee, age, location, professionalbackground, education, associations, and so forth.

In step 520, templates for additional nomination information are spawnedin response to a prior provisioning of information. Entry of certaininformation in an initial template for a ‘person’-type nomination maylaunch template fields for additional information. For example, uponcompleting a field for ‘graduate education’ information, a field for‘undergraduate’ information may be generated; following completion of‘undergraduate’ information fields, ‘secondary school’ information maybe requested. The additional templates may be logic driven or follow aset script until the logic flow or script is completed.

Following completion of all templates in steps 510 and 520, the personsubmitting the nomination may attach other types of content relevant tothe nomination in step 530. The information may include, but is notlimited to, document files such as .txt, .doc, or .pdf and rich mediafiles including video, audio, or images. Hyperlinks to third-partydepositories of information may also be referenced (e.g., a reference toa YouTube, Web page, or news story)

Once the nomination templates of steps 510 and 520 have been completedand any additional information provided in step 530, the user may submitthe template in step 540 by clicking a “submit” button. An optionalverification operation may take place in step 550 to ensure that alltemplates have been completed or that any ‘required’ templates have hadthe requisite information provided. If all of the necessary templateshave been properly completed, the information contained in thenomination template will then be displayed in a standardized format nextto the ‘voting’ option for the nominee in step 560. FIG. 6 illustrates atemplate 600 as may be used in the method of FIG. 5.

FIG. 7 illustrates a computing system 700 that may be used to implementan embodiment of the present invention. The computing system 700 of FIG.7 includes one or more processors 710 and memory 720. Main memory 720stores, in part, instructions and data for execution by processor 710.Main memory 720 can store the executable code when in operation. Thesystem 700 of FIG. 7 further includes a mass storage device 730,portable storage medium drive(s) 740, output devices 750, user inputdevices 760, a graphics display 770, and peripheral devices 780.

The components shown in FIG. 7 are depicted as being connected via asingle bus 790. The components may be connected through one or more datatransport means. For example, processor 710 and main memory 720 may beconnected via a local microprocessor bus, and the mass storage device730, peripheral device(s) 780, portable storage device 740, and displaysystem 770 may be connected via one or more input/output (I/O) buses.

Mass storage device 730, which may be implemented with a magnetic diskdrive, Solid State Drive, or an optical disk drive, is a non-volatilestorage device for storing data and instructions for use by processor710. Mass storage device 730 can store the system software forimplementing embodiments of the present invention for purposes ofloading that software into main memory 720.

Portable storage device 740 operates in conjunction with a portablenon-volatile storage medium, such as a floppy disk, Solid State Drive,compact disk or Digital video disc, to input and output data and code toand from the computer system 700 of FIG. 7. The system software forimplementing embodiments of the present invention may be stored on sucha portable medium and input to the computer system 700 via the portablestorage device 740.

Input devices 760 provide a portion of a user interface. Input devices760 may include an alpha-numeric keypad, such as a keyboard, forinputting alpha-numeric and other information, or a pointing device,such as a mouse, a trackball, stylus, or cursor direction keys. Varioustouch-driven versions of these input devices may also be used forproviding input of information. Additionally, the system 700 as shown inFIG. 7 includes output devices 750. Examples of suitable output devicesinclude speakers, printers, network interfaces, and monitors.

Display system 770 may include a liquid crystal display (LCD) or othersuitable display device. Display system 770 receives textual andgraphical information, and processes the information for output to thedisplay device. Peripherals 780 may include any type of computer supportdevice to add additional functionality to the computer system. Forexample, peripheral device(s) 780 may include a modem or a router. Otherperipherals may include the ability to display generated information ona remote device, connected either by a physical connection or via anynumber of wireless devices and/or networks.

The components contained in the computer system 700 of FIG. 7 are thosetypically found in computer systems that may be suitable for use withembodiments of the present invention and are intended to represent abroad category of such computer components that are well known in theart. Thus, the computer system 700 of FIG. 7 can be a personal computer,hand held computing device, telephone, mobile computing device,workstation, server, minicomputer, mainframe computer, or any othercomputing device. The computer can also include different busconfigurations, networked platforms, multi-processor platforms, etc.Various operating systems can be used including Unix, Linux, Windows,Macintosh OS, Palm OS, iOS, Android, and other operating systems asknown to one of skill in the art.

Votes or data proffered through the course of the method 200 of FIG. 2or nominations provided through the course of the method 500 of FIG. 5may be ranked and displayed in accordance with that ranking. Top votegetters may be displayed at the top of the displayed list and the leastpopular answers ranked near the bottom. A low ranking is not necessarilyindicative of a bad idea, but of (perhaps) a newly submitted answer oridea that has not yet received feedback from a variety of users. In oneembodiment, any new nomination or suggestion might appear at the top ofthe list for a pre-determined amount of time, to allow it to receiveconsideration from the voting audience. After that pre-determined amountof time, the actual ranking of the nomination or suggestion—based onvotes—will come into play and determine the subsequent position of thenomination or suggestion in the ranking.

Votes or responses may be updated or provided in real-time and up untila contribution period closes. As such, a first user may vote on onesubmission at one point in the day (e.g., 10 AM). The vote of the firstuser may correspond to the best available idea at that time (i.e., at 10AM). If a subsequent contributor (i.e., a second user) submits a betteridea or response later in the day (e.g., 1 PM), the first user may comeback later in the day (e.g., 2 PM) and change their vote or ranking fromtheir initial offering. In this regard, a user is not “locked in” to aprevious vote in those instances where a better idea is suggested laterin a contribution period or events unfold that might make an initialchoice to later be undesirable (e.g., a vote for a politician laterimplicated in a tawdry scandal. In the example of nominations being for“ideas,” a better idea may appear that warrants a change of vote.

Still further embodiments of the present invention may allow formultiple nominations. For example, the nominations could solicit the“top 3 candidates” or a user's “top five all time songs.” In a multipleVote or Nominate implementation, the process would allow but not belimited to either (a) a simple version, with a single nomination screen(template) that allows for all of the multiple nominees (maybe with lesstotal data), or (b) a more complex version, which opens multiple“nomination” data templates. In the Vote or Suggest version, the entrycould simply be limited to one “suggestion” field for each “suggestion.”

Notwithstanding the opportunity for multiple nominations, results maystill be tabulated independently and result in post-vote ranking basedon the total number of votes for each individual nomination orsuggestion (even though they were grouped in the nomination orsuggestion process). For example, if each person nominated or suggested3 ideas, people, or some other idea, individual cumulative results wouldstill rank according to total votes cast for each one, so that anextremely popular entry might rank highly, but other entries would fallinto the ranking subject to cumulative votes, even though all three weresubmitted together. Calculation of votes and ranking may take intoaccount those situations where a user is offered multiple votes, whichmay be applied against one or more ideas.

Embodiments of the present invention may also take in accountgeo-location information. For example, information concerning thelocation of a voter making a nomination may be taken into account. Thisinformation may be integrated with a mapping or other geographicinformation service (GIS) to properly show the physical location ofnominations and voters such that local issues and interests may beproperly derived. Embodiments might also identify other informationabout the voter, including membership in a group (e.g., a politicalparty affiliation), or demographic or psychographic information.

The present invention may also be integrated into social mediaapplications such as LinkedIn, Facebook, or Twitter to augment thevoting process. Widgets may be integrated with such services to allowfor accumulation of votes or nominations from third-party applications.Profile information may also be integrated into a voting process as maybe appropriate.

What is claimed is:
 1. A method for processing user input, the methodcomprising: publishing a query to a user audience; receiving a firstresponse to the query from a plurality of users in the audience, whereineach of the plurality of users is an individually identifiable user;displaying query response data corresponding to the first responsesreceived from the plurality of users, the query response data displayedin real-time; receiving a second and updated response from one or moreof the plurality of users that previously provided a first response tothe query, the second and updated response being responsive to the samepublished query; and displaying updated query response data thatincorporates the second and updated response received from the one ormore of the plurality of users that previously provided a first responseto the query, the updated query data also including the first responsesreceived from the plurality of users that have not provided a second andupdated response, and wherein the updated query response data isdisplayed in real-time.